The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-08-10
Western Life for Women and Chill
dren and for Poor Man.

dren and for Poor Man.
A friend of ours from the West came
to visit us, bringing his wife and their
Kansas-born children with him. The
children had hardly got inside the
house before they asked if we had
brook. We could not understand such
an inquiry until their father explained
that the children had never seen
small brook or rivulet before coming
East, and they were just wild to be
near one. Small stones or pebbles
were new to them, and wherever they
went flowers were no attraction if
stones were to be had. We had a
splendid, clear, pebbly brook just back
of the garden, and they were happy
there all day and picked up half bushel
of pebbles to carry home. They were
allowed to carry part of them to Kan
sas-a generous lot, we thought, as all
extra baggage was paid for by weight.
Their father became boy again with
them and built dam, made water
wheels and sailed paper boats for their
amusement. In the West there are no
brooks on the prairies; but there are
creeks, which are sluggish, muddy
streams, home for snakes and other
uncanny things, and no child would 90
there to play. Another want in the
West is good butter. Where family
lives in house with but one or two
rooms, and no cellar or ice, and no
water except in cistern, how are they
to keep milk sweet or make eatable
butter? Most western people are fond
of drinking buttermilk and sour milk
being used to it. My friend said when
milk was wanted for a baby or sick
person the only way to be sure that it
was fit for them was to go out and milk
a cow-any one that was handy, with
out regard to ownership. Another
want is society. There is no calling
upon neighbor for chat, when the
nearest may be six or ten miles away,
and Dutch or Norwegian at that. Such
an isolated life is not good for women
or children. The settler intends to
build house and to make improve
ments, but he must have machinery
for the farm or he cannot raise paving
crops and such things, and the hired
help take the money faster oftentimes
than it is produced, and when once a
man gets in debt he is badly off. A
poor man has more resources for get
ting living in New England than in
any other place under the sun. With
all our manufactures and various in
dustries he must be a shiftless man
indeed who, with average health, can
not make a good living here, and that
is all any one is sure of. We hear
great deal about going West, buying
a farm and being independent, but
there is long, hard road to be travelled
first, and the Spectator in lands has no
mercy. When he once gets a man in
his power he will grind him to powder
| wonder so many of the small Incl
dents of daily life are never mentioned
by western writers. The want of water
and cellars, and in most cases a gar
den and lots of such things, 90 far to
make up life of discomfort. VIZ.
Accompanying the above was per-
sonal note, from which we give an ex-
tract and remark that the published
letters from the West, coming as they
do mostly from those interested to in
duce immigration, will not of course
give the points which would deter peo-
pie from going there. They tell the best
side and leave the rest for the settler to
find out, which he often does to his great
disappointment and disgust. The fol-
lowing was found on the wall of a de-
serted shanty in the heart of Dakota.
" Fore miles frum naber; sixteen
miles frum a postofiis; twenty-five
miles frum raleroad; a hundred and
atey frum timber; half a mile frum